Skydiving Adventure – Level 2 Complete

Well today was definitely awesome and interesting day. First I started by getting up at 6:45am. I drove to Toronto to pickup a friend I met the last visit and then drove back to Barrie to go jump. We got there at around 10am and let manifest know we were there. It was a pretty uneventful day up to jump time. Watched some jumpers land, watched my friend do the PFF training for a bit and overall just chilled with the staff and other jumpers, had a huge fluffy brown dog lick my hand a few times for a petting. I even helped someone fix their memory card so they could save their jump video to bring home. The call for load 7 came up and it was time to suit up. I went over the gear safety check with one of my PFF instructors before putting my jumpsuit on. I killed some time talking with the guys before putting my rig on and strapping in for one hell of a ride. Drank some watery gatorade before loading onto the plane. Plane ride was a little shaky and there were some clouds outside. They called for 10500 feet but we were at 11500 feet byt he time it was ready to go. I did my climbout and launch well but again my arch lacked behind. Even so my fall was good. HARM check was quicker. All 3 practice pulls were great and this time the ball stayed where its supposed to and I got to enjoy 2-3 seconds of just enjoying the view. I got to fly about 1500-2000 feet through a cloud such was really cool and unexpected. It felt like a cross between air and a really thin mist of jello. You could really feel the weight of the air going by compared to just clear air. Just as I exit the clouds, I see its time to pull and pulled my cord and thankfully managed to hold on to it through the 5-10g of deceleration. The harness luckily stayed in place and while it still hurt a little bit, atleast I could fly properly and not chew on the chest strap all the way down. I’m not sure though if the cloud slowed me down or if the harness being done tighter is what make the deploy easier on the body as both are possible variables in that equation. I then tied up the release cord to the chest strap so it didn’t fall onto someones head or car. Because my ear had popped I had a hard time hearing the radio but managed to follow the instruction and was planning out my descend if the radio happened to go out or my hearing got worst. I was swallowing and chewing every 5-10 seconds to clear the airways to my inner ears the whole way down, all the jumpers ended up in somewhat of a tight pack so it was follow the leader for the last 1000-1500 feet down. I managed to land sliding on my ass again. I need to work my arms and bit and flare just a hair earlier so I am standing up more when I touch down. I still didn’t wanna chance a face plant just yet. I went over the jump with the instructors and got signed off for Level 3 which is awesome. We also talked about me going to iFly to get some freefall practice which I definitely gonna need to fix my arch. For the price of one 45 second jump I can get 10 minutes of practice in a vertical wind tunnel. Who would have thought you needed over a 1000 hp to power one of those, crazy. After finishing up, me and my friend went for some coffee. Being a non-coffee drinker I got a green tea. Why do they make that shit so damn hot, how does anyone drink coffee? WE talked about going to iFly next weekend and got to know another a little better. After coffee I brought her to the GO Station and head home to get some food and reflect on the day. I think it was a good productive day and I’ll be waiting for the next one ready to go. Bring It On.

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